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Eh heh, it looks like there are finally a few more artists coming in :D

...is what I'd like to say, but we are still too few! A new work gets posted maybe once a week.. the artists group has a coupla hundred members but no new posts (or at least hardly ever art related).. and on.. in short, this is a recruiting drive! Come on, pick up your pen and get to work!

In order to facilitate this, I've kidnappedborrowed invited over resident NEET and occasional doodler (I just made that up) Houraisan Kaguya to help us show aspiring artists the way to happiness! Come on up here, Kaguyan ☆
PLAN

The first, vital step, which most people underlook! It's alright to have a vision in your head, but seriously having it before you is so much more useful. I used to never do this, and run into all sorts of problems later- size, pose, etcetc. Just something really rough will do, and don't worry about proportions yet: the most important thing is to get the groundwork laid down.

Spoiler for like so:

FRAME

Possibly the most important step, and yet again also one skipped very often. This is the part where you actually draw out the framework of your characters, and it's invaluable in getting your proportions right- easy to edit, easy to visualise, and a good reference later on for anatomy and whatnot. This section is pretty much inspired by Andrew Loomis's entreaty on the mannikin (I believe his book is free domain now, and can be found here; however if you're serious about art I recommend you buy it- having the book in front of you is so much better.)

Since he explains it all so much better than me, I won't bother saying too much :P

Spoiler for something like this:

OUTLINE

Now you're ready to flesh out the figure. Once again there isn't much to say but here are some pointers:

There are general proportions that you should keep to in order to achieve an aesthetically comfortable figure: they're drawn out in case you can't be bothered reading the book. They are:

-Waist a third of the way down.
-Hips in the middle.
-Knees two thirds down.

There are others of course but generally speaking you should feel free to experiment.

Oh and a general hint for drawing the head: start with a circle then add the face below. Yeah head shape has always been a pain in the ass for me too. You get used to it xD (or just stop caring..)

Spoiler for dun dun:

DRAFTING

Now that you have your figure, you can start hanging clothes off them! Keep it rough for now, and pay attention to folds/creases as well as potential areas of light/shadow. Ensure the flow of the cloth conforms to the natural body lines and its movement.

Note: you may prefer to do the face before this. I usually do. Doesn't really matter, as they shouldn't interfere with each other too much.

Spoiler for clothes~~:

LINEART

Now for the fun part! Go over what you've drafted, except this time carefully and keeping things neat. You'll note I've used different colours; this generally isn't necessary if you're uncomfortable with it and you should feel free to start off just using black. This is also a good time to start considering your light sources.

Spoiler for jaan:

Just quickly: here's how I ended up doing the head. Guidelines are useful, and indeed were used, but I appear to have erased them before saving the pic. Anyways there are better tuts for that stuff out there >.>

Spoiler for face:

FINISHING

Congratulations, you're pretty much done!~ Now just do some generally tidying up, finishing touches etc. It's all easy by now.

Spoiler for finished lineart (sortta). kira.:

And there you have it! Now, go forth my children! Go forth and conquer!

Will add parts for colouring, if anyone's interested. But seriously, go out and draw something first.

Decided that this might be more useful for now. What's great colouring worth if your figure itself doesn't look right? Well, probably more, since it's easier to fix Not a lot! So in order to go through today's quick lesson, we've managed to forcecoerceblackmail persuade over lunar rabbit Reisen Udongein to help out with the proceedings. Good for more than just sex appeal right?

Anyways first off:

BOX

Remember that frame from earlier? Well, it turns out it's compact enough to stick it inside a box! How convenient is that?? (don't forget to keep your proportions though)

Spoiler for Boxness:

USING THE BOX

Now that you have said box, you can quickly and easily orient your figure to whatever perspective/pose you want. Sitting down? Just fold in the middle and at the knees. Looking from the bottom up? Increase box size lower down, decrease going up. When you've got the plane you're looking for, you can start filling out your frame

Spoiler for Frame again.:

PERSPECTIVE/HORIZON LINES

Whilst not always necessary, this is a good way to check that your features (knees, shoulders etc) line up to a common point. The closer your point is, the more extreme the perspective will be (of course). This means that you might have to extend your canvas a bit if you want to use them for most pictures.

NOTE: the horizon line (horizontal one) is common for *all* features/characters in your pic. Make sure everything lineｓ up against it!

Spoiler for something like this:

INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVES

Now that's great, but you'll soon see a problem- not every feature will have a start point in common/line up nicely with the perspective lines, or maybe they're in a different direction altogether. For these, you have to map out their own guidelines.

-First, find your start point: generally these will be joints such as the elbow/shoulders.

-Next draw out rough shapes of the appendage extended to the two extremes: apical/basal, proximal/distal, whatever; these are the terminals of your arc.

-Now imagine where your desired angle would result in the limb sticking out: the more into/out of the page the shorter the radius will be. There aren't really any complicated methods/formulae to this, just go with what looks about right.

Spoiler for about right:

Spoiler for drawn in:

LINEART (familiar?)

Yep, it's that time again. Remember: always draft something rough first to ensure you have something to work with and aren't just trying to carve it out on the first go- that takes much more time and is also much harder. This one was done all in black.

Spoiler for and done. Ignore those shoes >.>:

That's it! Once again, these aren't the most informative things out there and if you want more info on this stuff I redirect you to Andrew Loomis's book. Still, the most important component is of course practice.

Alright, now it's back to Kaguya sensei! Let's see what she has prepared for us!

NOTE: there are countless colouring styles and methods out there (obviously). This one is one I've found to be fast, easy, and effective. Feel free to develop your own style once you have the basics.

-STANDARD COLOURING-

FLATS

Your base colours. Everything will come off this, so be sure to pick them well! As you'll be adding both light and shadow, it's recommended that you pick something a bit in between. This will usually be the main body of colour. Also if you haven't already by now, decide on where your light sources are.

Spoiler for pettan~~.:

SHADE

Now with your light source in mind, start to imagine where shadows would fall. Don't go overboard: this is (probably) going to end up being the darkest part of the figure and you shouldn't overpower the other colours.

Don't be too fussed about accuracy, real life shadow physics are insanely hard even with a reference. Just go with something that looks about right.

Spoiler for shade:

INTERMEDIATES

This is to fill in the colour gap between your light flat and darker shade. How many you use depends on you; I've been lazy and just gone with one but the more you have the more natural the figure will look once you hit blending. Or at least that's the idea. Once again though: don't go overboard.

Spoiler for Intermediates:

SMOOTHING

Blend everything together. I've said this for pretty much every step so far but now it's most important: do NOT go overboard. It's very tempting to abuse the blur tool; I used to do that alot as well but the result is not pretty. Note that in real life when transitioning from areas of light to shadow, there is usually very little in between: enlarging this gap too much will potentially result in an unnatural look. This is generally less noticeable over smooth areas but discretion is still advised.

Spoiler for blend blend:

LIGHTING

After you've finished the shade, you can begin actually applying light: this is usually the easiest part. Simply imagine shining a giant torch on your figure from your light sources, and apply light (usually a white pen/airbrush with layer adjusted opacity) wherever it would fall. For a simple way of gradienting light imagine drybrushing a model: increase frequency and intensity of strokes nearer to the light source.

Spoiler for annd done!:

-SHADOW COLOURING-

This is pretty much the same thing, except with one main difference: instead of having to fret over what intermediate colours to use you just use black. Hooray for choice!

This method is generally used for pictures under very low light conditions: at night/inside for example. However if you really tweak the opacity of the darkness you can also use this technique to add shade to areas with many different colours you'd have trouble applying shade to normally, like a multicoloured coat.

Will be going through this fast, as it's pretty much exactly the same thing as before.

Since Kaguya sensei is away due to very important and vital matters, and totally not because I didn't manage to prepare something for her earlier, we have a guest lecturer for this session. Please welcome the guy with the hat :D

FLATS

As per standard.

Spoiler for not even pettan. boo:

SHADE

The easiest step by far. Just slap it on. (The holes are bits I've erased to stimulate light leaking through: this is pic specific so don't worry about them.)

Spoiler for so dark:

THE REST OF THE SHADE, SMOOTHING, ETCETC

As before. This time however as you only have one base colour, your "intermediates" will really only be different layers of black at different opacity levels.

Spoiler for all the rest:

LIGHT

Depending on the setting, this can either be rather intense if there's a large light source or just be rather ambient.

Spoiler for it burns! D:

Annd that concludes this session! With any luck, you'll be getting the hang of this stuff pretty fast. The key is simply repetition.

If a tablet is used in a raster-based image editor like PS, it's basically the same in appearance. You can identify digital art a lot easier with vector-based drawing apps like Illustrator, where the lines are very crisp and smooth and don't have that pencil-stroke quality.

But but, I have been dragged outside.. >< well kicked out more like, since I've just been dumped by myself in America.. Sneaking around in mcdonalds for the wifi and 'borrowing' the new iPad I brought for my Neechan (hooray bigger screen!) so no updates for awhile..

Following recent events, I have decided to renounce all worldly desires until time has healed all wounds and the flow of life may begin again. Meanwhile I will be calming myself and honing my skills in the practical application of scenery.

Unfortunately in terms of technique I am still very much limited to blur, mostly because I have yet to find out how to use the stupid brush tool properly. Same problem applies especially to clouds. Any tips in that general direction would be much appreciated.

Thought for the day: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Rereading those older posts is surprisingly painful. It's like chuuni all over. Glad you found them useful, although tbh I think I really had no business trying tutorials when my own skill level was/is so terrible.

@Ryonea: The character is Patchouli_Knowledge from Touhou and in no way related to a certain forum member here nor does it reflect any feelings on my part whatsoever.